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When communications fail it’s really hard to deliver your material to your contractors. Yes, digital media helps in capturing and editing material far faster than traditional media, but also consumes an enormous amount of power (laptop and camera batteries) and requires a steady data connection in order to transmit, which was non-existent at the time.

Power, if you need it, beg for it.

There’s always someone who’s been cautious enough to have a generator.

Just look for the only light on in town, head that way and explain them. Here’s why they will let you, probably no one has been able to send info or material to their editors, because no one in the rest of the country knows how that area is doing, and so getting that info ASAP could mean faster help to that town.

Power, saving battery life while editing

I love my Macbook Pro. It’s not the latest model, but the battery is supposed to last for 3 hours. You probably know that’s not true, especially when editing video.

So, a few tips:

- Turn off your Wi-fi (if on, it looks for connection, wasting a lot of battery), dim the screen light, remove any peripherals you don’t need, turn off keyboard lights and make your fans go off when your computer really needs them (using Fan Control)

- When editing your interviews, turn off the video layer, just listen to it, since your shot is on a tripod, you don’t need that. When editing B-roll, don’t play it, just scroll through your material or hit on different spots of the timeline, you’ll get enough info to do the cuts.

- Rendering. It’s a bitch. Avoid any effects or multilayering to avoid it. If you have to render, turn off your screen to save some juice, same as when exporting. Just listen to your computer, you’ll hear your fans slow down when done exporting or rendering.

Photos (I love my Iphone, Part 1)

As I said before, having no cellphone coverage sucks. But here’s the thing. When coverage fails, sometimes data still works. Don’t know the reason, but sometimes it does. Also, looking for high spots, might give you a bit of coverage, enough to do the following:

- Ingest your photos in your computer, process them and save them in your pictures folder. Plug in your Iphone, open Itunes and turn off all syncing options BUT the picture folder. Sync it and you’ll have the photos in your phone, Itunes optimizes them and makes them 640X480. I know, small, but you know what? Files are really small and your editors will have those photos before anyone else.

Once done, select them all and email them. The minute you get some sort of reception, your files will be sent. I spent almost 3 hours in Talca and surroundings looking for coverage until I got EDGE network at around 4am.

Remember that cellphones use radio waves so, a clear night and no interference can help those waves get further. I went to the same spot later that day and got nothing.

Be sure to have your Iphone configured to send BCC to your email, that way you’ll know if it arrived to its destination

Audio (I love my Iphone, Part 2)

I’m fully surprised. The iphone mic rules. Quality is superb even for getting ambient audio. Conduct your interviews, spell the subject names and that’s it. Just be sure to look at the timer, because the phone has a 2 minutes maximum per clip to be sent over cellphone. When done, email it or ingest to your computer, edit the material and follow the instructions for the photos and voilá. The minute you get coverage, your email will go on its way.

NOTE: Be sure to keep your phone in airplane mode when doing this, just turn it on

when looking for coverage or in a point where you know there’s coverage.

Data

Graphics people need it. So gather as much as you can, streets, exact addresses, area affected, length of , for example, the earthquake, how far did the wave reached, how tall it was, etc. This would be enough for them in order to create a map. Google maps can be used to look for the addresses and find exact places.

Again, write an email with all of it, when you get coverage, it’ll be sent.

Free Wi-Fi

One night I was lucky enough someone had set up a free antenna. Ask the Police, Fire Station or Radios, even people in the street.

But remember, what once worked, doesn’t mean it will be there again.

Ethics

Please, please, please, follow the rules. Respect people above all. Believe me, they will cooperate, they want their story told. The faster and better it reaches the media, the more help they’ll receive because eyes will be on that community.

Toning Images: I got disgusted when coming back home and seeing over-toned photos, for example, bringing earth tones up and removing shadows and adding light. Really, your job is to report and submit ASAP in order to inform about the situation. Be fair with the people. It’s already dramatic to lose your belongings and sometimes lives of people you love, believe me, you don’t need to add “drama” to your photos.

Report accurately: You owe it to the people. Don’t over dramatize. Just heard in a video a reporter say that “the smell of death” was starting to be felt underneath the rubble in Talca downtown. I was there, in the exact same street where he did his report and no one died. In fact, no one died in several streets around. I’m not completely certain, but I’m almost sure no one did in Talca’s downtown.

So please, don’t exaggerate and report properly. Can you imagine having your family living in the area and watching a video that mentions that “you can smell decomposing flesh in the air”?

(Photos at the end of the post)

When communications fail it’s really hard to deliver your material to your contractors. Yes, digital media helps in capturing and editing material far faster than traditional media, but also consumes an enormous amount of power (laptop and camera batteries) and requires a steady data connection in order to transmit, which was non-existent at the time.

Power, if you need it, beg for it.There’s always someone who’s been cautious enough to have a generator.

Just look for the only light on in town, head that way and explain them. Here’s why they will let you, probably no one has been able to send info or material to their editors, because no one in the rest of the country knows how that area is doing, and so getting that info ASAP could mean faster help to that town.

Power, saving battery life while editing
I love my Macbook Pro. It’s not the latest model, but the battery is supposed to last for 3 hours. You probably know that’s not true, especially when editing video.

So, a few tips:
- Turn off your Wi-fi (if on, it looks for connection, wasting a lot of battery), dim the screen light, remove any peripherals you don’t need, turn off keyboard lights and make your fans go off when your computer really needs them (using Fan Control)

- When editing your interviews, turn off the video layer, just listen to it, since your shot is on a tripod, you don’t need that. When editing B-roll, don’t play it, just scroll through your material or hit on different spots of the timeline, you’ll get enough info to do the cuts.

- Rendering. It’s a bitch. Avoid any effects or multilayering to avoid it. If you have to render, turn off your screen to save some juice, same as when exporting. Just listen to your computer, you’ll hear your fans slow down when done exporting or rendering.

Photos (I love my Iphone, Part 1)
As I said before, having no cellphone coverage sucks. But here’s the thing. When coverage fails, sometimes data still works. Don’t know the reason, but sometimes it does. Also, looking for high spots, might give you a bit of coverage, enough to do the following:

- Ingest your photos in your computer, process them and save them in your pictures folder. Plug in your Iphone, open Itunes and turn off all syncing options BUT the picture folder. Sync it and you’ll have the photos in your phone, Itunes optimizes them and makes them 640X480. I know, small, but you know what? Files are really small and your editors will have those photos before anyone else.

Once done, select them all and email them. The minute you get some sort of reception, your files will be sent. I spent almost 3 hours in Talca and surroundings looking for coverage until I got EDGE network at around 4am.

Remember that cellphones use radio waves so, a clear night and no interference can help those waves get further. I went to the same spot later that day and got nothing.

Be sure to have your Iphone configured to send BCC to your email, that way you’ll know if it arrived to its destination

Audio (I love my Iphone, Part 2)

I’m fully surprised. The iphone mic rules. Quality is superb even for getting ambient audio. Conduct your interviews, spell the subject names and that’s it. Just be sure to look at the timer, because the phone has a 2 minutes maximum per clip to be sent over cellphone. When done, email it or ingest to your computer, edit the material and follow the instructions for the photos and voilá. The minute you get coverage, your email will go on its way.

NOTE: Be sure to keep your phone in airplane mode when doing this, just turn it on when looking for coverage or in a point where you know there’s coverage.

Data

Graphics people need it. So gather as much as you can, streets, exact addresses, area affected, length of , for example, the earthquake, how far did the wave reached, how tall it was, etc. This would be enough for them in order to create a map. Google maps can be used to look for the addresses and find exact places.

Again, write an email with all of it, when you get coverage, it’ll be sent.

Free Wi-Fi

One night I was lucky enough someone had set up a free antenna. Ask the Police, Fire Station or Radios, even people in the street.

But remember, what once worked, doesn’t mean it will be there again.

Ethics

Please, please, please, follow the rules. Respect people above all. Believe me, they will cooperate, they want their story told. The faster and better it reaches the media, the more help they’ll receive because eyes will be on that community.

Toning Images: I got disgusted when coming back home and seeing over-toned photos, for example, bringing earth tones up and removing shadows and adding light. Really, your job is to report and submit ASAP in order to inform about the situation. Be fair with the people. It’s already dramatic to lose your belongings and sometimes lives of people you love, believe me, you don’t need to add “drama” to your photos.

Report accurately: You owe it to the people. Don’t over dramatize. Just heard in a video a reporter say that “the smell of death” was starting to be felt underneath the rubble in Talca downtown. I was there, in the exact same street where he did his report and no one died. In fact, no one died in several streets around. I’m not completely certain, but I’m almost sure no one did in Talca’s downtown.

So please, don’t exaggerate and report properly. Can you imagine having your family living in the area and watching a video that mentions that “you can smell decomposing flesh in the air”?

Last Saturday, at 3.37am, Chile was struck by a terrible earthquake. At the epicenter, the quake registered 8.8 on the Richter Scale, one of the 5 strongest earthquakes at least since 1922. By noon, Nacho and I had been flooded with requests for photos and or video. I was hired by the AP to shoot video. By three, Nacho had been hired to provide content to the New York Times and we were going to go to Talca, the first major city which faced serious, widespread destruction from the quake.

What the difficulties were and what the difficulties weren’t in this assignment surprised me. Shooting was easy. People saw us with cameras and they wanted to talk – they wanted what they were experiencing to be seen. Visuals were everywhere. The greatest challenge, and something I never thought of before were the logistics. The earthquake had knocked out all of the power. Gas stations weren’t operating or full of people trying to get fuel for vehicles and generators. How would we able to get back and forth? By Nacho’s calculations, we had exactly enough gas to get there and back in ideal conditions – but, what about traffic, detours, any extra driving? How would we be able to edit on a shared Macbook with at most an hour and a half of battery power? How would we be able to get our images back to the home offices? 100km north of Talca, not even our phones were working. We couldn’t even speak with the offices, let alone send huge video files.

Firstly, gas. The morning after the quake, every gas station in Santiago had lines of at least 10 cars. Luckily, Nacho had filled his car the day before. Nevertheless, the whole way to Talca, Nacho was calculating how many more miles we had on the current tank of gas and when we would absolutely have to stop to insure that we could get home. Any open gas station had long lines, but we could never be sure that there would be another open further down the road.

As well, traffic was very, very heavy. There were points where the bulk of the traffic was turning around and returning home. Each time, we had to ask ourselves whether we thought it would be possible to continue through or whether this barricade would prevent us completely from continuing. We continued.

As we neared Talca, there was a major rerouting through a small town named San Rafael. The Carabineros’ office had suffered major damage. (Carabineros are essentially the police.) While the building still stood, much had fallen from it and the non-structural walls had collapsed. Outside, a group of men were talking. At Nacho’s urging, we stopped. We took video and photos of the place.

Nacho began to speak to the men. As it turned out, many of them were Carabineros, but their uniforms were buried beneath the rubble. We explained what we were doing, and they volunteered another individual in the group, a teacher at a local school, to accompany us with our work. It was 9pm at this time and the light was fading. We warned him that we would likely not sleep, but he was unfazed. “I didn’t sleep last night either,” he said, and he became an invaluable companion and friend for the rest of the time in Talca.

The first place he took us was a campamento of people from San Rafael. They’d moved their kitchen table into a field, and set up tents and a tarp. By this time, it was dark. I could shoot nothing with my video camera nor with the 7D. The only thing visible was the camp fire.

The second place he took us was the hospital. Here, there was light. We asked the doctor whether we could shoot in the patient area. His response was that under normal circumstances, there would be no chance. This, however, was a disaster, and people needed to see it. Thus, we were allowed in.

Finally, we went throughout the city, looking for damage. Again, I lacked sufficient light. The power was out throughout the town. The moon was full, and the eye was able to the see; the video sensors, alas, cannot. I shot some, using car lights or a small flash light, but still, it was frustrating. The jail had a working generator, and the lights were on there. Part of a major wall had fallen, and armed men were guarding it, trying to prevent the detainees from escaping as they did in Conception. (Roughly 216 are still missing from Conception’s jail.) It was there I got my most usable outside footage.

After this, Enrique mentioned that his friend had a generator. We were invited there to charge our batteries. It happened his friend also had a butcher shop, and a huge asado going. We were fed large pieces of meat until we could not eat a bit more, and then spent the evening in this courtyard, editing on their terrace, under a grape arbor as the aftershocks came every hour to half hour. (Aftershocks, another thing this Michigan girl knew nothing about. And, the only food we’d brought with us was a pack of cookies. If these people had not fed us, we would not have eaten.)

Nacho left with Enrique and his friend, and I was left to edit my hospital story at 3 am. They drove for a good hour and a half searching for a wireless signal. By chance, they found one, and Nacho managed to upload his photos from his iphone. They also filled up the gas tank. There are no lines at 3 am. I finished editing at 6.30 – two stories – the fastest I’ve ever done in my life.

At 7, we went with Enrique to refind the wireless signal but it had vanished. We went to the radio station. The director had a thumb internet drive. He agreed to let us use it for five minutes. It was the station’s only link to outside news. It took me 30 minutes to send an 8mb file and Nacho another 15 to resend 8 photos, as the iphone had compressed the images at 3 am, and the Times needed them bigger. Thus ends day 1. Day 2 is daylight shooting and finding out that the file I’d thought I’d sent had not gone.